EcoInternet's Earth Action NetworkCurrent Cyber Actions at http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/alerts/info@ecointernet.orghttp://www.ecoearth.info/shared/images/eilogo85.gifEcoInternet's Earth Action Networkhttp://bit.ly/EI_PNG_WoodlarkProtect Woodlark Island’s Pacific Rainforests and Indigenous Forest Gardens from Corrupt Logging<p>Woodlark Island is a beautiful and isolated Pacific Island, whose intact lowland rainforests and indigenous culture make it an ecological and cultural treasure. The island, located off the eastern coast of Papua New Guinea, contains some of the last relatively intact and large lowland island rainforests in the Pacific Islands, and has supported native subsistence groups practicing sustainable agro-forestry for thousands of years. Yet now its lush rainforests and unique forest gardens are once again threatened by immediate plans to log up to half of the island by Malaysian logging company Karridale Limited.<br /><br />
Woodlark Island is an ecological hotspot, possessing incredibly value as a relatively intact example of lowland island rainforest, and as home to at least 42 endemic species. The Woodlark cuscus (<i>Phalanger lullulae</i>) – listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List – is a nocturnal marsupial that looks like a large teddy bear. The other 41 described species to date include seven frogs, four reptiles, seven plants, four insects, and 19 land snails. Many of these unique species have tiny geographic ranges and are unable to migrate off the small island, and are thus highly vulnerable to major industrial disturbances. It is virtually certain that many other species exist on the island that are not found elsewhere, as thorough biological surveys have not been conducted. The island's many unique species are due to its geographic isolation, as it was never a part of the mainland of Papua New Guinea, though it sits less than 200 miles offshore.<br /><br />
Customary land owners on Woodlark Island rely on the forest and land for their livelihoods and fear loss of control over large swaths of the island. Woodlark Island continues to maintain a social and ecological system that has supported human and other life for millennia; with healthy forests, wildlife and humans. Woodlark Island’s population is very dependent on their forests with most islanders making a living from small-scale gardening, hunting, and pig-herding. Islanders have shaped their island's ecosystem through the creation of meadows and sago orchards, yet much of the island remains covered in old growth forest. Those opposing the project locally are concerned with disintegration of the native culture from socially unacceptable behavior and starvation as gardening and hunting activities are displaced.<br /><br />
Malaysian loggers have long been characterized as “robber barons”, and have been pillaging Papua New Guinea for decades. Following a well-established pattern of gross human rights abuses by Malaysian loggers in Papua New Guinea; after sham token local consultations, and against the majority of local wishes, Karridale Limited has already landed machinery on the island. Karridale Limited, a Malaysian company, currently holds a Timber Authority over the Woodlark Island. But the actual logging will be undertaken by a subcontracting company named Woodlark Resources Limited which is a front company owned by two foreigners. There has been a long history of conflict between mostly Malaysian loggers and indigenous communities in Papua New Guinea. A solid majority of villagers oppose the project, and were not even aware of it until after its approval and the landing of equipment. A camp has been built and the company is waiting for final approval to begin logging.<br /><br />
The logging may overlap with a gold mining concession held by an Australian company called Kula Gold. The company's mining concession covers 45,000 hectares, or more than half of the island. The company plans to dump the mine's toxic tailings into the sea just off the island. The proposed Kula Gold mine would also decimate the island’s ecology, and while early in its planning, the PNG government recently acquired a 5% participating interest in the project.<br /><br />
Woodlark Islanders continue to press the government of Papua New Guinea for community land rights. One thing is clear: residents have not been sufficiently informed about the environmental consequences of three open pits and logging half the island. The logging and follow-up land uses would cause many of these rare species to go extinct, and toxic waste and runoff will threaten freshwater, marine ecosystems, and the unique agro-ecological gardening practices. Loss of intact forests will lead to at most a couple years of consumer goods, and then lasting impoverishment as forest materials are no longer available for food and building materials. Many options exist for long-lasting community advancement based upon standing old-growth forests.<br /><br />
Woodlark’s deforestation plans are but one instance of an epidemic of illegal logging sweeping across Papua New Guinea – and continue a failed ecocidal and genocidal Pacific development model that ravages local peoples and the environment. Across PNG some 5.5 million hectares have been stolen from indigenous landholders by unlawful logging operations under the guise of agricultural development. Deeply embedded political corruption, whereby Malaysian loggers bribe local politicians, means at least 70% of logging in the country is illegal – and 100% of industrial logging is environmentally damaging and fails to provide lasting local advancement. EcoInternet campaigns against illegal logging in Papua New Guinea and globally have been successful for decades. Let’s together stop the industrial ecocide and cultural genocide of the Malaysian logging industry in Woodlark, and in PNG and the world, once and for all.</p>
Sat, 20 Dec 2014 00:00:00 -1000http://www.ecointernet.org/2014/08/29/india-protect-mahan-forest/Demand India Protect Mahan Forest and Global Climate from Coal<p>India is planning 455 new coal plants threatening national and global ecological collapse. Most coal is found under natural forests, though coal mine leases have been granted illegally for nearly two decades. Villagers in Madhya Pradesh are working to protect the Mahan forest, one of the last remaining patches of dense, unfragmented forest in central India, form a $3.5 billion coal mine being pushed upon them. The Mahan forest is home to tribal populations as well as endangered wildlife including sloth bears, elephants, leopards, peacocks and tigers. Villagers oppose the project, saying that it will destroy the timber, leaves and seeds of the centuries-old Sal forest on which they depend.<br /><br />
This month the village council in one of the 54 villages that depend upon the Mahan forest will vote over the proposed Mahan forest coal mine development by London-listed Essar Energy and Indian conglomerate Hindalco Industries. An earlier vote was marred by corruption, and the forest community’s rights have been violated in a systematic clampdown including the intimidation of villagers. Environment clearance by the government in 2007 was marred with irregularities. A successful vote opposing the mine in Mahan will boost the cause of hundreds of other anti-mining campaigns across the country, as a new forest law gives people a say over natural resources.<br /><br />
<a href="/shared/alerts/img/mahan_protests_lg.jpg"><img src = "/shared/alerts/img/mahan_protests_sm.jpg" style='float:none; max-width:290px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:5px;' ></a>Unfettered economic and population growth sweeping India threatens the nation's climate, food and water supplies, and India’s future potential for sustained national economic advancement. With 300 million Indians still lacking electricity, there is no hope for equitable and ecologically sustainable development based upon filthy coal and loss of the nationals last old-growth forest remnants. The question is whether India will succumb to the greed of a small but powerful minority who want to usurp the larger community’s fundamental rights of access to clean air, water, and food. India's political establishment should embrace long-term sustainable development programs based upon a renewable energy and restoration ecology economy.</p>
Fri, 29 Aug 2014 00:00:00 -1000http://www.ecointernet.org/2014/07/26/yasuni_rainforest/Continue to Oppose Oil Production in Ecuador's Yasuni Rainforests<p>The existence of a secret road into Yasuni rainforests, leading directly to an oil production platform, has been confirmed by high resolution satellite images by National Geographic and others. Plans previously approved by Ecuador's Environment Ministry in the project's environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) provided for a "cutting-edge, roadless helicopter-enabled design" and expressly forbid road construction. Only narrow "ecological trails" 10 metres wide or less were meant to be built in the Park. But these conditions have clearly been breached - images show a 26 metre wide road and flowline corridor for a prospective pipeline, the two cutting a swathe through the rainforest up to 60 metres wide at one point. The initial, "roadless" design was approved by the government in 2007 when the operating company for Block 31 was Brazilian state oil and gas firm Petrobras.</p><p>
Scientists regard the Yasuní rainforest as one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, with an extraordinary abundance of birds, primates, reptiles, and amphibians. The park contains more tree and insect species in a single hectare (2.47 acres) than in all the U.S. and Canada combined. Yasuní also harbors two groups of highly vulnerable, uncontacted indigenous people who wander the forests as hunter-gatherers in near-total isolation from the outside world. UNESCO designated Yasuní a World Biosphere Reserve in 1989. </p><p>
In 2007, the Ecuadorian government announced it would forgo drilling in ITT if the international community compensated it with $3.6 billion, or half the expected revenue from the oil drilling. Known as the Yasuni ITT-Initiative, it was billed as a way to mitigate climate change by leaving 846 million barrels of oil in the ground, preserve species, and safeguard indigenous groups who had chosen voluntary isolation. But last year the government killed the initiative after the international community pledged $330 million or less than 10 percent of the total. Support for full protection of the Yasuni remains high in Ecuador, as activists across Ecuador recently gathered 850,000 signatures to kick off a national referendum on whether-or-not to drill in ITT. However last month, the National Electoral Council tossed out over 60 percent of the signatures claiming most were either repeats or fakes. Two weeks later, the government approved the drilling license for Petroamazonas to drill in the even more controversial ITT Block, which covers about 100,000 hectares or 10 percent of the park.</p><p>
Roads are "leading drivers" of tropical deforestation and threaten the integrity of territories of uncontacted indigenous people living in isolation. Without improved oversight, Petroamazonas will likely continue building new access roads deeper into the core of the Yasuni National Park in both Blocks 31 and 43 (ITT). EcoInternet (then Ecological Internet) was the first organization to campaign internationally on oil and roads in the Yasuni, and we played major roles in stopping roads in the Park in the mid-2000s, and first conceiving and promoting the Yasuni-ITT initiative. EcoInternet calls upon you again to protest to keep this massive ecosystem – which disproportionately powers the biosphere – fully ecologically intact and roadless.
Sat, 26 Jul 2014 00:00:00 -1000